Saving Annalise | ✓

xxvii| Proditione

"How did you take it, after the argument?" She asked me, knowing that I couldn't respond to her previous statement.

"After he left the music room, I cried for a bit and then just left school. I had psychology, but there was no way I could go to lesson in the state I was in. I went home, turned my phone off and cried for about two days."

"You missed school for two days?" She asked, her voice sounding surprised.

"Yeah. It was easy considering my favourite teacher left, so I had no expectations to live up to. My friends thought I died, though," I almost laughed. Almost.

"Have you spoken to anyone about the break up? Properly?" She asked tentatively.

"Other than just mentioning it to my mum, only you."

"I don't really know what to say to you. You seem fairly put together," she observed.

Put together was also the phrase my mum used when I told her that Chase and I broke up, but truth is, I was far from that. I had endured two real breakups in my life, before this one, and both times I had hidden it. I stayed in my room, crying and then pulling myself and my thoughts together until I was fine, and that was when I was ready to speak about it. By then I was okay and that was the side of me that everyone else saw.

The part of me that broke down, that desperately clung onto the memories of me and Chase; the part of me that went two days straight barely drinking water, let alone touching food; the part of me that spent hours trying to calm my breathing by sitting in the darkness and physically counting my breaths - that was the part of me that nobody else saw.

"It wasn't easy," I confessed, feeling myself physically weaken at the thought of the past week. "It still isn't easy. I still don't know how to feel, or what to think. I just don't want my world to stop spinning for a boy."

"You don't have to pretend to be strong, Annalise," Olivia noted. "I know, theoretically, it seems stupid to spend a week breaking down about a boy, but you need to realise he was a part of your life that is suddenly gone. It's okay to mourn the loss of that."

"I'm not being strong, Liv," I sighed. "It's hard, but I feel like I have so much going on that I just need to ignore the empty feeling and get on with life."

"Is that how you feel? Empty?" She asked, almost behaving like my therapist.

"I don't want to lose him, not just as a boyfriend, but I want him in my life. I just know it's not possible. Maybe we fucked up by dating and should've just stayed friends."

Liv chuckled from the other side of the phone, "there was no way you guys could be just friends. The first date you went on, you guys ended up making out."

I felt my cheeks burn slightly, "shut up."

"My point is, I don't think you guys were meant to be just friends. I think you and your ex would be good friends if he gets over you and you forgive him, but you and Chase will always have something romantic."

"I don't know, Liv," I breathed, "I think for now it's just best to focus on my studies."

"That," she began, "I don't disagree with."

"So tell me, have you spoken to your family about your wedding plans?" I changed the subject, feeling increasingly suffocated when I spoke about Chase.